Handywoman
by Omnicat
Summary: It's so nice to have a riveter around the house.


**Title:** Handywoman

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** Marvel's _Agent Carter_.

 **Warnings:** None.

 **Characters & Relationships:** Peggy x Colleen

 **Summary:** It's so nice to have a riveter around the house.

 **Author's Note:** Enjoy!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **Handywoman**

Colleen returned home to a one-woman chorus of furious grunting and muttering, and the in contrast almost terrified squeaking of springs. Oh dear. She hadn't thought of that when she invited Peggy to come live with her. Grimacing to herself, Colleen kicked off her shoes and rounded the corner into the room.

"Hey, Peggy. You look like you could use a hand."

"Oh! Colleen," Peggy said with yet another grunt. She was propping up the half-closed bed with her shoulders. There were springs in her hair. "I, uh, seem to have broken the bed."

Peggy tried to move but jolted to an abrupt halt when the length of her hair ran out. "Ouch!"

"Oh no, no no, don't worry about that," Colleen said, hurrying over and pushing Peggy back into her Atlas-like position. "Here, let me. Your hair – you hold the bed and I'll..."

"Yes, silly of me not to think of that," Peggy muttered.

Leaning in for a better look, Colleen grinned. "Would've gotten you killed in the war, right?"

After a moment of hesitation, Peggy rested her cheek on Colleen's shoulder and said, not without humor: "Quite possibly, yes."

"My bad. The bed was like this when I moved in. It does this sometimes." Colleen removed a bobby pin to free up another strand. "I forgot to warn you."

Peggy _tsk_ -ed. "Sloppy, Private O'Brien. I should court-martial you for that."

"Private?" Colleen laughed. "That's all I get? I'm an engineer, you know."

"Oh, well." Peggy's laughter tickled her throat. Colleen shivered. " _Corporal Colleen_ , then."

" _Colonel_ Colleen. Aaand, you're free."

Colleen backed away and propped up the bedframe to let Peggy make her escape from the hungry springs.

"Well," Peggy said primly as she patted down her hair. "A narrow escape, to be sure, but no harm done. We live to fight another day. Or – I assume there's a trick to it that's been eluding me?"

"Yeah. Here. You just squeeze this –" She pressed both sides of the left hinge together as tight as she could and, careful of her fingers, slowly tilted the bed further up, until she could remove her hand and push it the last of the way. "– and done."

"...I thought it was the right side causing the trouble," Peggy said, staring. She shook her head. "It's good to have a riveter around the house."

"I'm sure you communications specialists have your own uses," Colleen teased.

Peggy smiled in a way that made her insides melt into something hot and bubbly. "You have no idea."

"Tea?" Colleen asked in a slightly strangled voice.

"Yes, please." As Colleen brushed past her to the stove, Peggy tapped the bedframe. "Should I worry about the structural integrity of this thing? I'd hate to roll over too... vigorously... and have it collapse on me completely."

 _Vigorously._

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," Colleen told the safely inanimate wall. "I dismantled the mechanism once. The parts don't fit quite right, but in the end I think it'll hold at least two people rolling over together. _Vigorously._ "

Over the rush of the water filling the teapot, Colleen heard the bed lower. The springs squeaked, hard; Peggy must have dived onto the bed.

' _What did those innocent little springs ever do to you?'_ Colleen almost asked. But her throat was dry.

Peggy didn't say anything more either. No _'perhaps we should test that theory'_ in that crisp accent of hers. No _'exactly how vigorously are we talking?'_.

Maybe she had Peggy pegged all wrong.

Then:

"Colleen?" Peggy asked quietly. "I was wondering..."

Colleen turned. Peggy was on her back on the bed, leaning up on her elbows, one foot dangling over the edge. She wasn't looking at Colleen, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish's, color high in her cheeks.

On a wave of courage born from sheer, undiluted endearment, Colleen crossed the room, knelt over her startled friend, and kissed her into the mattress.

"Sure," she said when she came up for air. "Let's test my theory. Wouldn't want to endanger the troops again."

Peggy beamed up at her, and this time, when Colleen lowered her weight, they didn't break apart again until the kettle whistled.

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **PSAN:** And then Colleen didn't die and they lived happily ever after, the end!


End file.
